


The Last Few Firsts

by laudanum_and_wine



Series: Beginnings and Endings [1]
Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Excessive Drinking, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Meetings, Give Miller Nice Memories, Is there a tag for making a happy universe so you can later break it?, It's like a Dashiel Hammett novel with all the booze for breakfast, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:55:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudanum_and_wine/pseuds/laudanum_and_wine
Summary: A series of first-times for Octavia and Joe, when things were good and sweet (when that was possible)Non-canon at all, but an arguably -possible- history of these two from before the show begins: let's assume Miller was a dick to Octavia because they dated, and not because he's just a total trash person until Julie. Some history for Octavia taken from the books, though the personalities are pure show-based.
Relationships: Joe Miller/Octavia Muss
Series: Beginnings and Endings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009044
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. Come over to my place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia brings Miller to her apartment for entirely wholesome reasons.

The first time she took him home she wasn't interested in him at all. Mildly repulsed, if anything: he stank of sweat and liquor and bile.

She'd been drinking with her friends, it had been girls night out, but Rena and Ky had gone home with a flirty couple and that was just too many people for Octavia. She wasn't exactly a prude, but at five people it wasn't a hook-up any more it was just an orgy, and that wasn't her scene. Not tonight, at least.

So Octavia had waved goodbye to them all as they played four-girl-grab-ass out the door, and then she dran the half-full beer Rena had left her. 

Octavia had planned on finally heading home when she saw something that looked suspiciously like a guy about to get his ass kicked in the corner of the club.

There was one tall fucker, two guys who were just way too god damn beefy to not be on steroids, and some very drunk lanky man all pressed up into the booth in the corner. No one was shouting or posturing and no one was making out, and that was what worried her. People weren't quiet tonight, not here. This was the quiet of a guy who was about to get murdered and didn't even know it yet. The tall fucker was looking around, they were going to make a move, drag the lanky guy out a back hatch or just roll him right there. She was a cop, and somehow this was her problem. 

Octavia was halfway across the room and considering hiking up her dress to reach the gun on her thigh when she saw the hat. She hadn't really known Miller at the time, but everyone knew that fucking hat. She hated that fucking hat, but so did half the criminals on this rock. Perhaps she should try more charm and less flashing a gun and hoping for the best.

"Joe!" She exclaimed and slapped both hands on the table loudly. The three thugs started at her noisey arrival, but Joe barely looked up. He was definitely wasted and in bad company, but was able to meet her gaze so that was something. The older cop wasn't going to pass out right here at least.

Octavia looked at the tall man, figuring that the only one of the three thugs who had been bright enough to glance around for witnesses was probably the only one smart enough for her to talk some sense into. "Thanks for keeping an eye on my partner, friend. I'll take it from here."

No one moved. Okay, less charm, more threats. Octavia leaned against the table and hiked the shimmering blue fabric of her skirt up, and all three men looked down to see thigh and thigh and thigh and- revolver. With the Star Helix holster strapping it to her skin.

"No problem," the tall one said after a beat. He stood, eyeing the two meatheads. When the tall man left, the two brutes followed leaving Octavia and Joe at the booth. His fucking hat was pushed back and almost off. He did have the decency to look mildly confused by the change in company.

"It is Joe, right?" She asked.

He blinked up at her, nodded, held up one hand in a universal gesture of "one moment", then leaned over and puked almost on her shoes. He spit a few times, took a sip of his whiskey, then nodded again.

"Miller, nice to meet you."

"We've met," Octavia was sure they had, though she was just tipsy enough herself that she couldn't swear to when or how. Joe Miller sounded right, sounded like a name she'd heard attached to long strings of expletives from her superiors at work. "I'm Star Helix." 

"Oh good," Miller lowered his head to the table.

"Okay, come on man, get up," Octavia pulled at his shoulder. "We're gettin you home. Can't let a fellow officer get mugged in a bar. Bad for our reputation."

Miller mostly went along as she pulled him out of the booth, from the side opposite the now-cooling vomit. He did swipe at his drink once as she hauled one of his arms over her shoulders, but she slapped his hand away. Miller craned his head back to glare at her from a half foot away, which she found unexpectedly hilarious. 

"Where do you live Miller?" She asked.

He pouted and blinked again, then muttered something about "next to the ramen place." That narrowed it down.

She took him to her place, a tiny hole that was a little further toward center than the bar. She left him on her sofa, with a mixing bowl next to him and a bottle of water. She woke up at three in the morning to the sound of him retching in the bathroom, and came in to check on him.

"Miller?"

"Sorry," he said from near the toilet. He hadn't made a mess of her bathroom and hadn't needed the mixing bowl, so she didn't care.

"It's fine. You feel any better?"

"Yeah," he stood shakily, so she helped him back to the sofa. He stank of vomit and day old sweat and she considered if he was sober enough for her to drag him home yet. 

"Try to get a few more hours," she finally said, dropping him back to the sofa cushions (they already reeked from him anyway) and went back to bed herself. 

Octavia woke up from a standing alarm on her hand terminal, one set for a few minutes before the 0600 lights-on of the station corridors. She had the alarm set seven days a week, better to wake up on time even on a day off than to miss work. It was a day off, so she almost went back to sleep, considered her guest, and instead rose and made coffee in the dark. Miller made a betrayed sound a few minutes later when the glow of lights-on filtered through her frosted windows. 

"Morning, sunshine," she said, and poured two cups of coffee. She heard him sit up, look around. "I'm Octavia, special investigator, Star Helix."

"Miller," his voice was gravely and he cleared his throat. She handed him a cup and leaned against the kitchenette counter to drink her own. After a few sips he tried again. "Joe Miller, and uh. The same."

"I know," she let him stew, watched confusion writ large on his expressive face. Finally she elaborated, "I recognized you at the bar. You were about to get mugged by some roided up ice buckers. Figured that'd be bad for Helix's reputation, so I brought you home to dry out a bit."

"Did I, " he paused, finger spooling in the air like he was reeling in a stray thought, slowly "Did I puke on your shoes?"

"Near miss."

"Ah. Good. Can I ask if there's, uh, anything else embarrassing I should know about?" He finished his coffee, and she realized he really had been blackout drunk last night, didn't remember a thing. He'd been shockingly mobile, considering. She thought about letting him stew, letting him suffer for a bit, wondering what he'd done, if he'd made a pass at her, but-

"Nope," she shrugged with one hand like it was no big deal. "Can I ask why you were treating yourself to some liver damage last night? Special occasion or just a Friday night tradition?"

"My anniversary," he said. He had found his boots where she'd set them next to the coffee table.

"Oh shit," Octavia paused. She hadn't considered that someone might be worried about him. "I should have sent you home at 0300 when you were starting to sober up-"

He waved a broad hand, his face a twist of dismissal, "Nah nah, no one was waiting. Anniversary of my divorce."

"Ah." And honestly that made a lot more sense. 

Miller has his boots on and laced, and while she noted the anachronism of wearing shoes with laces he was gulping down the last of his coffee and standing, then before she knew it he was handing her back a cup-

"Thanks," he said before slicking back greasy hair and settling a hat on it. Thay fucking hat.

"Sure. Try to stay out of trouble until work on Monday, okay?" She watched him walk to the door.

"Actually I work today," and he was smiling. 

"Shit. You really are crazy."

He shrugged, then was gone. After her coffee, Octavia sprayed the sofa down with cleaner and cycled the apartment air, then spent the morning getting updates from Rena and Ky about their evening of debauchery. She did not tell them about taking home a middle aged coworker she didn't even know, it would absolutely not have been worth the headache. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this on is hopefully cute, ish, and pretty sweet and optimistic feeling. It's all their First everythings.
> 
> (Gee they drink a lot, sure hope that's not a problem later...)


	2. Go over to your house

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miller has to bring Octavia over for mostly wholesome reasons (mostly).

The first time Miller brought Octavia to his place, he'd felt like an idiot and a letch. He couldn't decide which, both, neither. She had really only stayed a few minutes, but he'd been so damn happy to send her back into the halls that he almost whooped when she was gone.

It had been a cliche moment, and he should have seen it coming with the way his luck ran. A heat-vent had overloaded in the commercial district up-spin from his own home, spiking the temperature of that whole section by ten degrees. Star Helix had rushed the nearest ten agents over to the area, to help sweep the halls, drag anyone in the area back to cooler climes, and run general crowd control while a maintenance crew worked double time to fix the over-active vent.

Everyone had been stripped down to their tee shirts, and of course hers had caught on a sign and ripped badly just as she dragged a kid with heat-stroke out into the residential corridor. Miller almost hadn't noticed in the loud buzz of a hundred residents all complaining and shouting and fanning themselves, but he looked up and caught more than an eyeful of smooth skin and froze. While a lot of Ceres residents went around practically half-dressed, Octavia had clutched at the fabric of her blouse in a way that told him she wasn't exactly keen on flashing a passerby. 

Without thinking he had snatched his own jacket from where he'd hung it over a signpost and threw it at her, and for her part she'd pulled it on without hesitation. He paused in the cacophony, just a moment, and considered their options: most of the pedestrians from the shops were cooling off on the floor of the residential halls, but they still needed to sweep the nooks and crannies one last time, which would take at least a half hour. Octavia would absolutely pass out from heat stroke in that coat if she went back in, and she would absolutely go back in anyway, he could see it on her face.

So he'd tugged at her cuff rather than shout over the sound of the crowd, and had jogged a dozen meters down the hall and one floor up to his hole. Miller had ducked inside, bolted to the back room, and returned to the door with a spare collared shirt without even checking to see if she'd followed him. As he rounded the half-wall that separated livingroom from bedroom, the door behind Octavia slid shut and it was suddenly and abruptly silent. She hadn't asked where they were going, and he realized she might not have known what the hell his plan was- shit. Hopefully she wasn't skeeved out that he got one eyeful of tits and dragged her back to a run down residential-

"Shirt," he managed, and thrust out a handful of black cloth at her. Octavia took it and Miller paused, then quickly spun around to face his own wall. "Come on, hurry it up kid: we gotta get back out there." Like she was the one causing the delay, sure.

"Thanks."

He heard a thump of fabric and realized she had thrown his coat on the sofa. He managed not to look over at the sound, reminding himself that his job right at the moment was to just stare hard at the wall joint in front of his nose. 

"Alright, let's go," and he heard the noise of the crowd ramp up as the door opened. She was already off at a half jog, rolling up the cuffs of his shirt to her forearms as she descended the stairs. He took off after her, watched her elbowing through the crowd and back into the commercial district, then lost sight of her for the rest of the day. The whole detour had only taken them four minutes, and it had taken another thirty for the maintenance team to get the vents fixed. No one else passed out from heat stroke.

After the all-clear was sounded, his hand terminal had a note to take the rest of the day off, paid, and that thanks to the extra work they'd all gotten an extra twenty liters of water to compensate the exertion. The whole corridor stank of humankind, so he understood the logic there.

He had taken a ridiculously long shower with twenty liters, which had been unexpectedly relaxing. He'd almost forgotten that there had been a half-nude beautiful woman in his apartment today, until his eyes lighted on the jacket she had abandoned after changing. 

Miller glared, dropped his beer bottles in the recycler, and silently tried to forget the whole day. When he swept up his coat and the scraps of her bra and tee shirt tumbled out, he tried not to look at them and stuffed those into the recycler as well.

The next morning rose on a Miller that had finally succeeded in forgetting the low-grade embarrassment of the afternoon prior with the help of whiskey. He had been only half hungover by the time he made it to his desk, just a lingering headache, and was digging through a desk drawer for pain killers when he heard Octavia's voice.

"Oh, one sec, Don- Hey Miller!"

Miller looked up to see Octavia peeling away from her partner, half jogging the length of the office to his desk with something in her hand.

"Hey, here's your shirt back," and she handed him a bio-plastic package. She'd had the damn thing cleaned.

"Thanks," he said, and dropped it into his open desk drawer.

"Thank you," she was grinning, leaned against his desk on one palm. "Guess we're even now."

"I, uh. Had to toss your clothes-" he scratched the palm of his hand absently.

"Oh, okay. No worry," she made a wide sweep with an arm. "I probably ripped them worse trying to get out of them so fast anyway."

"Probably."

"How was the rest of your day off?" Her grin had wound down to a mellow smile that he couldn't help but return. 

"Relaxing, took a long shower."

"Ha, me too! Wouldn't mind a day like that again," and she was wandering off.

Miller rooted through his desk for those pain killers, did glance up when he heard a scuffle at the door, but had a generally nice day until he got assigned the homicide at the docks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't care if it's got zero hits, it's getting daily updates until it's complete, damnit. 
> 
> If you were going to say this story is goofy and cliche? Yes. Literally yes. This one is meant to be fun, not good, I don't care: fun.
> 
> (When I was writing my Beetlejuice and Control fics I justified my indulgence with the fact that Quarantine was stressful and I deserved to have fun. And besides, I argued, they were pretty okay fics anyway.  
> I no longer CARE if this is good, I wrote 10k in two days and it is BLATANT ESCAPISM because I live in America and my sympathetic nervous system is running on the gas fumes it could huff from a sharpie)


	3. Buy me a beer and take me home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia and Miller bond over drinks and getting rolled home.

The first time Miller bought her a drink she'd had to tell him to.

"So," Octavia sat next to him at the bar, watched closely as his eyes tracked up her form to her face. He was still sharp, this was his first drink then. Octavia used one finger to drag the cup away from him and in front of herself, and when he just watched her with a twist of his lips she decided he didn't care and threw back the rest of the liquor.

Whiskey, god, of course it was whiskey.

He was laughing when she un-squinted her eyes, so she must have made a face.

"So what?" He asked.

"So why the fuck do you drink paint thinner?"

"Don't steal a man's drink-" 

"Then buy me one and I won't have to."

Miller rolled his eyes, tipped his head like he was considering, and flicked a hand at the bartender, "Two Persephone ales."

"Oh my god, you're a beer snob aren't you," Octavia shifted, pushed off from the bar with one heel to scrape her seat until she was half-facing Miller. He glared at her words but did the same, letting their knees knock together for a moment.

"Can I help you Muss, or did you just swing by to ruin my night off?" He sipped his beer like he didn't care about her answer, which she somehow doubted.

"So it turns out," she traced the condensation on the aluminum of her own drink, "That if you publicly return a guys shirt and have a conversation about showering, people are just gonna assume you're sleeping with him."

He didn't laugh, which was good. She'd have had to hit him, and her hand already hurt.

"Who told you that, and did you break his nose?" He was shockingly relaxed. "If you want to stop rumors then drinking with me probably isn't the best bet."

"Shit, I don't care what Cavendash and his broken nose think," she sipped her beer. It was downright malty in flavor, and she was unimpressed. 

"Pretty sure your partner's name is Cavanaugh."

"Pretty sure his name is dead meat. This beer is terrible, by the way."

Miller screwed up his face, like he was frustrated and amused and disappointed all at once. Octavia sipped her beer, daring him to ask why she was really there. She wasn't sure. She'd seen Miller from the street, seen him eyeing a half-glass of hard liquor at 1800 on a Saturday, and had opened the door of the bar with a hand that still ached from a sucker punch she'd thrown not a half hour ago. She had a week of unpaid leave thanks to her temper, and knew Miller was off work for the next two days, and hadn't thought beyond that.

Octavia had been surprised when she hit Cavanaugh, her mind working a mile a minute to justify why she'd done it even as her partner crashed to the floor, until she admitted that it wasn't her honor she was defending. She'd been pissed that the joke had been Miller, that Don Cavanaugh (and by extension the whole station) had thought she was somehow slumming it by sleeping with him. At the beginning of the day the jokes had just been about how Octavia was sleeping around, and she had thought the jokes had been the kind of good-natured ribbing anyone received when their private life got out into the open. By the end of the day she was sick of it, and of the overtone of patronizing concern everyone was exuding.

Miller was a decent fucking guy, damnit. Sure, he was a drunk, and eccentric as hell, and maybe a little too old to act quite so slick, but he was shockingly respectful at times. Prickly but harmless, as far as she could tell. Hell, he had blushed at the sight of her breasts, which was both hilarious and endearing: she'd watched him book a topless hooker once without a leer or batted eye, so she didn't think he was a prude. If station gossip was anything to go by he was quite the opposite.

So one right jab later, and after Shadid finished quiet-yelling at her, Octavia had wandered the Ceres corridors out of sorts. She had seen Miller and had walked into the bar first, and then only after she'd done it did she bother to think a mile a minute in an attempt to justify what she'd already done. She considered it once more drinking malty beer, and decided it was because she wanted to get to know Miller. Wanted to be his friend, maybe. 

Octavia waited, and sipped the awfuk beer and tried very hard not to make a face about it.

"Okay, what you need to know about the Persephone brand ales-" Miller started, and Octavia silently congratulated herself on finding the exact right topic to loosen him up. 

+++

The first time he'd taken her home, it had been after Miller had found her sitting in the same bar two days later, drinking a beer at 1400 in the afternoon. A Persephone IPA, to be precise, he could see the red stripe up the bottle from through the plexiglas window. She had actually listened to his rambling the other day.

"Okay, Muss, what are you doing?"

Her eyes tracked badly when she looked up at him, she must have been a little drunk. 

"Hey Miller!"

"Octavia," he tried again. "Why're you drunk in the afternoon?"

"You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?" He was confused, or was she just confusing?

"I really did get suspended for breaking Cavanaugh's nose. I thought you knew, fuck, was that just a lucky guess before?"

Miller felt his eyebrows rise on their own. He hadn't heard, had been joking the other afternoon, but then again who would tell him considering he was part of the why- 

He eyed Octavia again, trying to work through a thought.

Octavia had actually decked a guy, her partner, for suggesting that she was sleeping with someone. Then she had gone out and fraternized with that someone publicly the very same night. If she'd intended to dispel rumors, she'd messed up her plan badly. Unless-

"Fuck," he barked a laugh. "Were you defending my honor, Muss?"

"Go fuck yourself," she replied amicably.

"I mean you're not a bad catch, not exactly damaging my reputation any."

"No really, Miller, go fuck yourself."

"Don't have to," he shrugged with both hands. "According to the station you can do it for me."

She swung at him and hit his shoulder even though he dodged. He blinked, grinned: she'd pulled her punch, he barely felt it. Miller grabbed her now-akimbo arm and crouched slightly to pull it over his shoulders.

"You making a habit of assaulting police officers Ms. Muss?" He straightened, and she stood with him easily. She wasn't that drunk.

"You are a fucking jackass." she wriggled her arm off his shoulders, but wrapped it firmly around his bicep instead. "An anachronistic eccentric jerk. With a bad haircut."

"You don't like the side shave?" He led her into the halls. She didn't resist.

"No, that side's fine. It's the slicked back curls I hate," she paused in her steps. "Hey. You remember where I live?"

"Sure."

"Walk me there, would ya? I think I need a shower. And food."

They walked, Octavia becoming increasingly steady on her feet as they went. She kept up a stream of one-sided conversation, mostly about his awful haircut, then how she hated his sideburns, then a brief interlude about who the hell wore buttons any more other than him, did he not know zippers existed, and what was the point of wearing the Star Helix belt with a shoulder holster, it didn't even keep his pants up. It all would have been much more cutting if she hadn't been wearing two day old sweatpants as she waxed eloquent about fashion. 

"Alright, we're here," he finally cut her off.

"Thanks Miller," she was mostly sober, he could see it in the steadiness of her stance. She was playing a little drunker than she really was, probably embarrassed. He let her have that, but was surprised when she reached up, touched his cheek. She was too sober for that, by far. "You really are a good guy." 

"Who dresses like an 'earther in a portside nightclub?'" He used her earlier words.

"Yep," she replied. "But it suits you."

Then she was tugging at the door to her apartment, calling out to her home terminal to frost the windows, and then she was gone.

Miller scratched an ear and adjusted his hat and went back to his rounds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a double-chapter since the second bit was short and the two are essentially happening within days of one another. 
> 
> Adjusted ch count: its 3 more after this.


	4. Let's get dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shared meal even if it didn't mean anything.

The first time they had a meal together it was decidedly not a date. It had been a long week: a handful of unsolved beatings had made everyone jumpy, most parents were nearly hysterical that some teenage idiots had been killed by a gang for being too nosey. To top it off, a week-late hydrogen shipment had half the station on edge to begin with. Some weeks were like that, and Octavia had spent enough time on Ganymede to understand that what seemed like a trivial matter could be made deadly if the general population was under enough stress. It was like a low level of background radiation: you might not die from it, but even a small external stressors and, bam, you were cooked up from the inside.

So she was feeling forgiving most of the week, and then it was Friday, and a whole recycler level went out, and she took a left hook to the cheekbone in the chaos of frustrated employees getting drunk while their factory was repaired, and suddenly her patience was gone. Cooked up from the inside.

"Listen, I literally do not care," she told the vendor. "If you don't have a to-go container. I will eat from the pan while standing in the corner, for god's sake, I just need some fucking dinner. You're the last place open."

The noodle seller, who she knew spoke perfect Lang Belta and English because she'd eaten here for three fucking years, swore at her in Tagalog instead. He too had apparently had enough of this awful week.

"I got it," were the words spoken over her shoulder as a hand touched her arm.

The vendor hurried away, so Octavia turned to the voice and tamped down the urge to punch someone and it was-

"Miller."

"I've got a bowl of garlic mushrooms and rice noodle soup. And the last bottle of the Amaterasu lager, I think. Want some?" He gestured to a seat at the bar.

"Fuck, yes," Octavia managed, and sat in the open chair. There was no second seat, so Miller just crowded in to lean against the bar next to her and sipped his beer while she stuffed two mushrooms into her mouth.

"So, how was your day?" Miller's tone was thick with sarcasm, and she almost choked on a bite of rice noodle.

"Once we had a really awful soy bean blight on Ganymede, lost half the season's crops, and there were riots," she said, and traded him the chopsticks for his beer. "It was less awful than this day was." She pointed at the bruise blooming on her cheek and then sipped the beer, considered the flavor, "How about you?"

Miller had just taken an overly large bite of noodles, so rather than answering he set the chopsticks down and rolled up his sleeve. Octavia stole the chopsticks back and nibbled at the mushrooms while he did so-

"Wow, nice," she finally said when he revealed a long twisted red line of cut skin held shut by staples. The wound was sealed with a smear of bio-plastic that would promote healing, but it still looked gruesome. It did not slow her enjoyment of his dinner in the slightest.

Miller swallowed and stole back the beer.

"With that new bio-gel shit you probably won't even have a scar," Octavia commented.

"Probably not," he agreed. "They can't do anything for your face?"

"You calling me ugly, Miller?" She joked.

"Hey, I bought you dinner didn't I?" They traded chopsticks for beer again and Miller ate the last mushroom.

"Thanks, by the way."

"No problem. Didn't want to have to arrest a fellow officer for beating a shopkeeper to death."

She finished his beer with a spiteful smile and stood. 

"Don't die," she waved lazily and left him to his rice noodles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty short lil chapter, the next two are two part-ers. You have to wait for ch 6 for me to earn my Explicit rating and it's a slightly less explicit chapter then some of the other scenes I've written to be honest, so that'll be different.
> 
> And hey, things are looking less grim here in the good old US of A but still. Tense. I'm still nauseous! Whatever though.
> 
> If you wanted a soundtrack for this fic, put on Dummy by Portishead plus some Chet Baker


	5. First and second kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like a near death experience to clarify things.

The first time he kissed her, Octavia had almost died, and she wasn't sure it counted as a kiss. 

The fire portside looked like murder, but no one could ID the guy or find a motive, and the thought was that maybe he'd been cooking drugs. Octavia had worked in vice on Ganymed for years before being first transfering to crimes against persons then violent crimes, and someone had obviously remembered that. Vice had been full up this week, no one to send down for what was probably just a homicide-by-fire, and Shadid had thought this may very well have been a homicide but maybe also more. So here Octavia was, representing the best of both worlds, she supposed.

Just the night before, she and Miller had talked about her old vice job, the rape squad, and her old departments and friends and home on Ganymed. They had both worked overtime that evening booking and documenting a gaggle of drunken trash that'd been arrested in something between a fist fight and a gang war. The ten men looking sullen in handcuffs had turned violent again when one of the detectives found that the girls they'd been fighting over were just a little too young to be legal. When the detainees got restless, Octavia had no problem roughing them up. In fact half the department probably had blood to polish off their shoes now.

So when 2100 in the evening rolled around and Miller minimized her case file for her with a flick of his wrist-

"I was writing, you prick," she was too tired to sound mad.

"You were chewing a hole in your lip, kid. Paperwork will still be here tomorrow," he barreled on when she looked up, so she must have looked angry, or indecisive, or something. "I'll buy you dinner if you just walk away from your desk for five damn minutes. "

"Fine," She made him wait while she stood, saved her data, and shrugged on her coat.

They didn't talk until they got to the ramen shop, his favorite apparently. Not until he'd paid for two bowls with soy-meat and black bean sauce, until he'd begrudgingly ordered two beers as well. Even then he was uncharacteristically quiet, until she finally sighed and broke. 

"Fine, let's talk about it."

And so they talked about vice, crimes, and how in the fuck could people do that to kids. How she wished she could have stayed there, but at first she hadn't been able to sleep nights, and then she started sleeping like a baby no matter what, and how that scared her worse than insomnia. She talked about moving here, to lower gravity but more damn people. 

Miller talked about coming into the violent crimes department from the organized crime team, and how the turnover on that team was like clockwork when the criminals eventually realized you were both a belter and a cop, and how everyone who worked there ended up tagged welwala within a year and burned all their bridges, and Octavia filed that away next to all the other information she knew about Joe.

They'd talked all night, and when the ramen shop shuttered the window-bar she walked him back to his apartment and they sat on his patio in the half-light of night in the corridors and he smoked a cigarette and she stole half, until they ran out of words.

She'd gone home way after midnight and slept like the dead for just three short hours, but hadn't felt guilty about that fact in the morning.

And so the next morning, she went down to check on this burnt out hole that might have been an accident, or murder, or might have been divine retribution on a man cooking something nasty.

The coroner and camera-controller had come and gone, the body was long removed, and the apartment was left with a lingering smell of cooked meat and a thick layer of ash wherever organics had been. Octavia had propped the door open behind her with a charred throw pillow, hoping the air scrubbers in the hall would cycle the air and help with the smell. There was a single-pannel scrubber above the door next to the sensor system, but it had fused in the fire, plastic melted and carbon tubes probably non-functional. Hence the smell, she figured. 

Octavia had looked around, opened cabinets and drawers, gently lifted the glass and metal piping that might once have been a decanting system with gloved hands, and bagged a few items that seemed to need identification.

Behind her she heard a rap on the glass, and she looked up to see Miller knocking with a half smile. 

"Isn't it your day off?" She asked through the glass. She half registered a sound, a shuffling.

"Figured I owed ya coffee since I jawed your ear off all-" he held up two paper cups but his last words were cut off. 

The gentle rapping at the glass had shaken the window enough to loosen the pillow she'd been propping the door open with, and it had swung shut. Like most apartments, this one had an airtight seal, and with the scrubber above the door fused with melted plastic Octavia couldn't hear a thing from Miller in the hall. 

Octavia shuffled a bit, heading to open the door, and tripped over the half burnt pillow. A puff of ash kicked up, right into the damaged detector, and she heard a click-

"Fire suppression system online," a voice said, as a red light flashed above the door. "Secure emergency breathing masks- gaseous suppression measures will be implemented in five seconds."

There was a hiss as the room began to fill with what Octavia was sure would be carbon dioxide. The room thought there was a fire, thought it needed to smother the flames. 

Miller somehow managed to look almost calm as he dropped the coffees on the other side of the glass, reached up to above the door, and ripped open the exterior access panel for the above-door scrubber. 

Octavia took a deep breath, knowing that she would need to hold it, and pulled at the access panel on her own side as well. It came away, a melted lump where the emergency breathing mask ought to be. Whomever had cooked to death in here last night hadn't made it to the mask at all, it seemed.

Octavia laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth in shock: she couldn't afford that air loss. She could see Miller's mouth moving, but couldn't hear him, just the muffled scrapes and bangs of whatever he was doing to the scrubber. It only took a minute, and then she heard a wrench of tearing aluminum as Miller ripped down part of the air scrubber insert. Above her head she saw the filter on her side rock in its casing, and she reached up and pulled it from the wall easily to drop to the ashy floor.

The room's sensors could tell the airtight seal was lost, and immediately the hiss of gas ceased, and the door clicked as the lock disengaged. Miller wrenched the door open and Octavia stepped out and took a deep breath and-

"There's no CO2 warning," Miller was looking up, at the corridor's scrubber and detector system a few feet down the hall. Octavia stared as well.

She stepped back into the room and took a breath- nothing. She didn't feel anoxic at all.

"The suppression system was tampered with, maybe the guy turned it off to prevent the fumes from cooking setting it off..?"

Miller's eyebrows worked for a second, like she had spoken Mandarin or something. 

"Oh my god I could have died," she said.

"There it is," he drawled.

"Oh my god-"

"Yep," and he pulled her by one hand to lean against a low railing dividing the walkway from the apartment doorways. 

"You," she stared at him. "You brought me coffee?"

"Idiot," Miller tipped his hat back and pressed a kiss to her hair, just a brush of lips really, but enough to make her pause, to make a small part of Octavia's brain that wasn't panicking think, "Oh, thank god."Then he made her count her breaths until she was calm and could call in for a technical team to deconstruct the fire system and tell her if it was broken intentionally or accidentally. 

+++

The first time she kissed him he almost got into an argument with her about it. Thank god he had learned to shut up, just occasionally.

Octavia showed up at his place ten minutes after he'd gotten home from the almost-death-trap. Miller was annoyingly shaken, unsettlingly ill at ease, and was planning on figuring out why by drinking about it. He was just about to collapse into his sofa and take a sip of his whiskey, but no, there was a knock at the frosted glass of the door. 

It was midafternoon, and she was still supposed to be at work, and that's what he told her when he answered the door.

"Don't you have work?"

"I almost died," Octavia said.

"No you didn't," but he held the door open with the hand not holding a glass of whiskey and let her in.

"You're drinking?"

"You almost died," he countered, hoping she'd call him on his hypocrisy. Instead she took his glass, drank it, did not flinch at the burn, dropped the glass to his coffee table, and kissed him. She tasted like whiskey and smelled like soot.

"Woah," he managed to stutter the word out but couldn't quite peel his hands off her hips even as he protested out loud. Octavia paused. "You're in shock-"

"I'm fine. You kissed me first-"

"What, in the hall, earlier?"

"Yeah."

Miller realized they were having this conversation with their faces so close he could feel the heat of her breath on his lips-

"Okay, yeah," he confessed, and he kissed her again because she had a point. While he had thought up a half-valid defense about his brush of lips just being platonic, he just chose to shut the fuck up. It had been platonic, at least he thought so at the time, but like hell if he was gonna argue with this now: if she was in shock and regretted this later, well fuck, that would be inconvenient but such was life. She wouldn't be the first woman he'd had to work with who wanted to kick his ass.

Octavia had crowded him into the wall and wouldn't give an inch when he tried to edge her back gently, to move them sideways. After a few attempts he gave up and just used one foot to sweep her legs out from under her and drop her to the sofa with a huff. Served her right for being so pushy anyway. She dragged him down, which he was fine with, and let him pin her to the cushions with hands and arms and a knee between her thighs.

They were all lips and skin and too many clothes for a few minutes, until he had her shirt hitched up and a hand in her frankly ridiculously tight jeans, when she suddenly rolled them over and paused. His hands were a little occupied, but he held still when she put her palms flat on his chest.

"I like you" she said.

"Okay…" 

"I don't want to fuck you if it means we can't still have beer and noodles."

He looked around the room trying to find the question she was asking, and possibly the answer she wanted.

"Maybe we should slow down," was what he finally settled on. 

He was surprised that he had, apparently, found the right answer. She smiled warmly as she stood and left him with nothing but a view of the ceiling and a hard on. He didn't sit up until he heard her open the door.

"Good night Miller."

"Yeah, good night Octavia."

He stared at the empty doorway until it swung shut, then at the empty tumbler he'd filled with whiskey not minutes ago, and wondered if he'd just imagined the past half hour. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My stress level is down by like 99% and all is good and right in the world for a bit here. Thank god.


	6. Stay the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week of flirting does eventually pay off.

It was exactly five days after she almost jumped him that Miller stayed over for the first time, and in retrospect the whole week leading up to it had been amusing.

The first morning Miller had stopped by her desk, leaned against it, and glared at her like he was trying to figure something out. He stood with arms and ankles crossed, took a few breaths like he was trying to find a sentence, and didn't speak.

"You good?" She asked. 

"Oh, I'm fine." He finally said.

"Super. Well if you're gonna linger and glare like a stalker, at least bring me coffee next time."

She thought she heard a snort, but when she looked up he was walking away. She watched him go appreciatively, then went back to the reply email from the techs about her arson case and wondered when, exactly, she had begun to appreciate his form.

He caught up with her that afternoon, jogging through the crowd at the 1100 lunch break. 

"Muss!"

She slowed until he caught up, "Hey Miller."

"Grab lunch with me," he said, like it was an invitation rather than a question or suggestion. "Tell me about the arson case."

"Ramen?" She asked.

"Or sushi," he said. Shit, that was fancy, for him.

They sat in the back corner of the restaurant and neither ordered any actual fish, instead eating nothing but rice and fried bean curd.

Miller was charming, Octavia hadn't actually realized he could be charming. Nice, sure, but she knew that was an act and that the man spent most of his time being a prickly bastard. She wasn't sure when he'd cultivated the social skills to actually be effortlessly charming. Maybe she'd just never looked for it before, she thought. He had her laughing, grinning at her not-sushi, telling him funny stories from the morning. 

Outside the restaurant she smiled at him, was ready to say something about doing this again, but was interrupted. A woman across the street hollered, just enough anger in the tone that they both glanced over. The woman's friends were shushing her, laughing, and when Octavia glanced back over Miller was still watching the commotion with a half smile. She decided she didn't completely hate his stupid hair cut, or his eccentric suits.

"Later Muss," he said before she could re-gather her thoughts, and then he was gone and then she was back at her desk.

The next day there was a paper cup of coffee on her desk and no Miller to be found. She'd brought her own coffee in, and by comparison the one he'd left was almost comically bad. It was a paperwork heavy kind of day, trying to find out how a fire suppression system could be hacked remotely, so she drank her own coffee and ignored the one from Miller until lunch. By that time it was cold and she sipped it anyway. Without the heat she could taste the bitter of the synthetic flavorings and the added caffeine, and from the coppery taste she knew exactly what machine it had come from. Miller was out someplace, something on the board about a string of muggings, so she left the last sip in the cup and abandoned it on his desk for him to find when he got back.

Day three she ended up elbow deep in a murder case and almost fractured a knuckle punching a suspect who had tried to headbutt her. Her whole hand was bruised by noon, and she was taking notes for her cases left handed. Cavanaugh had smirked at her when he saw her come in, and she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah yeah, I probably deserve this," she smiled as self deprecating as she could fake.

"Probably, but I make it a rule not to get involved in your personal life any more." Cavanaugh left with a finger wave that was absolutely mocking.

She didn't see Miller at all that day, but did get a quick prerecorded message late that evening that was just his voice saying, "Shit kid, you know you got a taser too, right?" She flexed her hand, less swollen now but still bruised, and sent back a photo of her making a rude gesture. 

On day four there was a cup of mostly melted ice and a pack of pain killers on her desk, next to a hermetically sealed package of tazer darts. 

"You don't even work today, asshole," she said aloud, but took the pain killers.

Friday morning Octavia had woken up and it felt like something had clicked into place in her head. 

She brought Miller a cup of incredibly cheap coffee when he came back to the station after an all-morning excursion at the docks. He was seated with his feet on his desk reviewing his notes, and when she set the drink down he pursed his lips and poked at the cup like it was suspicious.

"Yes Miller, I am trying to poison you. Obviously," Octavia picked up the coffee, took a sip, then grabbed his hand and pressed the paper cup into his palm. For a moment she was unexpectedly flustered by the contact, then decided not to be and intentionally dragged her fingers along his wrist as she pulled away. "Drink your coffee."

He did. His face twisted.

"This is terrible."

"I know. That was intentional."

"You know," he took another sip then pointed at the cup with his free hand. "You actually kind of owe me dinner, what with making me drink swill."

"Oh really? This is the same synthetic crap you left me on Tuesday."

"Fine, then I owe you."

"No shit."

"Yeah. Have dinner with me."

"Twice in a week," she said, and then when it looked like he was about to speak she went on. "Okay, yeah." 

"It's a date," he said and looked pleasantly surprised.

This time she dressed up a little, wore the same blue wraparound dress she'd first taken him home in, back when he was some drunk barfly trying hard to get mugged. 

When they met he looked almost the same as ever, though she imagined it was hard to go from his daily outfit to anything more dressed up, especially on Ceres. He'd worn a vest and no gun, and she supposed that was probably as fancy as he could get. He whistled appreciatively as she approached.

They went to a restaurant that served fish, cooked this time so they both actually ate it. They ordered sake and laughed about the flavor. After dinner they walked through the corridors, not touching, until she accidentally brushed her bruised hand against his and winced. For a moment she thought she'd ruined the mood, but Miller just placed an apologetic kiss on the palm of her hand and gently took her arm so it wouldn't happen again.

They heard the bar before they saw it, then within a few meters they couldn't hear much anything other than the bar, so they went in. Octavia bought them fizzy drinks that had almost no alcohol content and made Miller pull a face. She danced at him more than with him, and bought him a whiskey when he was a good sport about it all. He leaned in and spoke into her ear, but she couldn't hear him, so she just nodded, and finished her drink, then he walked them out of the bar. 

"You deaf yet?" He said, his voice falsely muted in her still-ringing ears. 

"What?" She laughed, and he did too, even though it was more cliche than funny. 

On her doorstep they paused. He looked about to speak, something in him melancholy. Like this was a bad idea, or a last date or- so she said, "Next time, you pick the bar. I picture you liking places with bad lighting and sad jazz music that only serve whiskey. Am I right?"

He half-smirked and rolled his eyes, and Octavia knew she was right. She might have been staring, was worried she seemed like an idiot, but he leaned in to kiss her anyway. It was a gentler kiss than last time, slow and thorough, a broad hand warm against her spine-

She laughed against his lips, and he pulled back, smiling.

"What. What?" He sounded amused rather than annoyed.

"This whole week was one long subtle attempt at seduction, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yeah," he admitted. 

"You had no interest in me at all until I kissed you the other day, did you?"

"Well. Less 'no interest' and more 'no clue I had a chance'," he clarified, tracing his fingers through the cropped half of his hair nervously.

"And you haven't done this in a while, have you?"

"Was I that terrible?"

"No," Octavia shook her hands negative. "I just-"

"Thanks for humoring me-" Miller said dryly, and she could see his frustration building.

"God you're kind of an asshole," she grabbed his vest to keep him from leaving. "No one bothers seducing me, Miller, I haven't had anyone put in any effort in years. It's good, it's wonderful. Yeah, you were rusty, and I should make you drink that awful coffee from the first floor break room every day as penance for making me drink it, but I'm still gonna invite you in."

"You're sure I'll say yes?" He asked, and she could see him kicking himself in real time for the flippancy. She just raised a brow long enough to let him know he was a moron, then leaned into his space.

Miller understood the invitation and took it. He kissed her again, slowly, hands again on her spine, until she made a quiet embarrassing noise and broke away. Octavia opened her door with a swipe, then held it open from within, intending to ask him in for a drink or anything clever and charming. His face was a mix of open want and nervous anticipation, so she hooked a finger into his vest and just reeled him inside.

That seemed to be enough to alleviate his anxiety, because she barely had time to close the door before she was pressed up against it and he was pressing kisses down her jaw and along her throat.

"Windows opaque," he said. And when nothing happened she realized is was a suggestion.

"Ah, windows opaque, lights low, music at ten percent," she managed, and he paused and smiled at her as the room filled with soft sad jazz. She shrugged, "I was thinking of you while I got ready." 

He dropped his hat on the coffee table and she had an out of body moment where she realized that at some intimate point in the not too distant future she was definitely going to tell him to keep the hat on, and if that wasn't proof she was soft on the man she didn't know what was.

"I hate that hat," she said out loud, and watched him consider it with pursed lips then slowly shake his head.

"Nah, you don't."

Octavia stepped out of her heels, took his hand when he offered it for balance. She stood in front of him for a moment, smiled up as she hooked a foot behind his ankle, and shoved him roughly to fall back onto her sofa. 

"I deserved that," He said, hands half raised. Before she could respond he hooked a hand behind her knee and pulled her down, cushioning her fall, until they were a tangle on the floor, laughing. Octavia straddled his legs as he sat on the floor, hiking her skirt up and watching his smile. 

"I didn't break your back, did I?"

"Do I look fragile to you?" Miller faked an affronted scoff.

Octavia ran a thumb along his throat, "Yeah." When he opened his mouth to protest she rolled her hips.

"Oh, we're gonna play that way," Miller licked his lips, and she realized that was an intentional distraction only once he had a hand slipped up her back to unclip her bra, then long fingers were sliding up to pull the straps down, and she was half tangled. She leaned back and stripped out of bra and dress swiftly. 

Miller was left wide-eyed below her. She used his lack of attention to unbutton his vest and shirt, push them down long arms until he had to lean forward and fight his way out of them just to get his hands free again. Octavia used the momentary gap between Miller's back and the sofa to wrap her legs around him, their weight shifted, and she blinked at the change, chest pressed to his. She took a moment to trail fingers along his chest, scrape nails down his ribs, roll her own hips. 

"Tavi," he breathed, and he had never never never said her name like that, never said it that way, and both of his hands were in her hair, pulling it loose as he pulled her into a kiss that spun her head, hot, a taste of whiskey, the pads of his fingers rough on her skin, tipping back her jaw to trail his lips over a pulse point as she smoothed a thumb up the tendons of his wrist-

"Okay, wait wait-" she got the words out somehow, muttered against his lips. He barely slowed down.

"I'm clean, you're clean, and you've got the implant," he said against the corner of her mouth.

Octavia pushed him back a few inches, and this time he let her, "Did you read my medical file?"

"I could feel the outline of the implant on your bicep. And I know I'm clean. I'm right though, right? I mean, there's a condom in my pocket if I'm wrong but I really, ya know, really want to be right on this one-"

"You're such a fucking smartass. Yeah," Octavia dug blunt nails into his sides only a little gently, and was unsurprised when Miller seemed to melt in her hands, surged up to kiss her.

She didn't know how they got to their feet, it was low grav in her cheap apartment but she didn't think he had managed to actually lift them both from the floor to standing. And yet somehow her legs were still wrapped around him when they fell onto her bed, and she unwrapped them only to fumble with his belt and pants and he finally pulled away long enough to strip off the last of his clothing as she shimmied out of her own underwear, and then he was above her again, kissing her and mouthing along a breast sucking momentarily on his long fingers then working them into her which was the most explicitly erotic thing she'd ever-

"Fuck, Joe-!" His hands were both occupied with her, so while he kissed her Octavia managed a moment of half clarity and reached between them. She earned a quiet groan from him on her first brush of skin, then when she stroked down his length his mouth froze against hers, and she bit his lip gently. She managed to keep up a rhythm, to keep him panting against her skin, until his thumb found her clit and circled it, pressed, and she had to let go, had to dig blunt nails into the mattress just to keep from bucking him into the ceiling.

Miller leaned back and looked pleased with himself about that, smirking again, his stupid long curls half-fallen into his eyes and Octavia pushed her own hair back to see him better. He was too far away.

"Come here and fuck me."

"Yes ma'am," he said, and she wanted to laugh but he was kissing her again, and god his lips were distracting. One hand between her legs, fingers slipping out of her then he shifted, fingers being replaced with thicker, heavy pressure, and god the slide of him was too slow, ached. She moved, rolled her hips up and met him, helping drag him closer with a hand on the small of his back, clutching-

"Ah, fuck, Octavia-"

"Yeah, exactly-" She panted. 

He shook his head, and gently gathered her hands under his own, fingers laced together for a moment, twisted in the sheets above her head. Then he fucked her with the slow rolling pace that only her belter lovers could ever manage. It was something about patience, or maybe low G, and she was babbling something about this out loud and, saying thing like 'so fucking good' and 'right there' and he was replying quietly with 'like that?' and 'oh really' and finally she managed something about 'fucked me senseless' and he said 'not yet' and thumbed at her clit again and it was all stars. She managed to gasp out his name, first name, loud, and kept breathing. By the time she was regaining her senses she could feel him shudder, he was shaking in her arms and falling apart with a groan and her name. She ran fingers along his shoulders, traced the improbable ridges of his spine, and panted with him.

Long breaths later Miller pressed a kiss below her jaw before pulling away, and Octavia sat up and chased him with her fingers to card back that loose curl of hair she was quickly becoming fond of.

Octavia wanted to talk, to tell him to stay, to tell him what she wanted and how his fingers felt on her. She was the kind of woman who talked about things, in general, baldly and without shyness. It was just, this really did not seem like the time, the apartment still dim and half-lit, and Miller being whom he was: he'd run. 

She became aware that the music she'd put on was still playing as her sense of hearing came back. Octavia leaned over, keeping one hand on Miller's thigh to make sure he stayed, and slapped the three button series that would drop her apartment into night mode. The lights shifted, going from the dim and warm glow of internal lighting to the filtered corridor LEDs slipping through frosted windows and past her half-wall.

She met his eyes, didn't stay anything, and eventually pulled a blanket from the folded stack at the bottom of the bed up and over their legs. After a beat he shifted, fought with her pillows for a moment, then pulled her close against his chest. She felt him pause, felt three shakey breaths behind the curve of her ear, then his lips.

+++ 

The first time Miller woke up at Octavia's had been a low grade shit show, with him puking in the morning and stinking up her sofa, and not even knowing the way home when he'd left, and wandering for almost ten minutes before finding a tube station, and- Christ. It had been a shit day.

But the second time was surprisingly nice.

They had both woken a little before 0600 with a single chirp from her hand terminal before she slapped the alarm off. Octavia had watched him lay there in the dark for a few minutes, until the corridor lights ramped up to "daylight" and he could see her clearly in the reflected glow.

"Ya trying to think of a way to throw me out there, Muss?" He finally asked through half-closed eyes.

"Nah, I was just thinking I kinda wish I knew how to make you breakfast. Get you to stay for a bit."

Miller looked over, then shifted to prop himself up slightly and consider her and her now-absolutely-wild hair.

"Can't cook?"

"Not really, no. At all. You?"

"Mmh, no," he admitted, scratched his chest idly. "But you know… I hear they have these places, bakeries. Got all kinds of stuff, bread. Croissants. Bao buns."

Octavia was already sitting up, looking around for yesterday's bra.

"I'll buy, since you got dinner," she said.

"How generous of you."

"Fine, next time we'll split the bill," she was shimmying into her underwear and jeans and Miller let himself enjoy the view until she blinked at him. "Come on Miller, I'll make real coffee while you get dressed."

He dressed very quickly at the promise of actual coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's done and hopefully someone somewhere enjoyed it! Definitely not the normal ex-partners story for these two and kinda fluffier than I intended going in, but hey. 
> 
> Gonna work on a follow up to destroy all that goodness, pure sweet then pure angst, oh yeah. 
> 
> Crits and comments make my whole damn week, even just heart emojis. <3 Thank y'all for reading.


End file.
